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Stingray HH with John East preamp


dmckee
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Stingray purists look away.... 

I have a 2001 Stingray H. I swapped in a Norstrand MM4.2 and the John East 3 band MMSR preamp. Major improvements, but after trying a Stingray HH I decided to take the plunge and get another pickup and a 5 way switch installed. 

So, I now have an additional Nordstrand and a 5 way switch, wired up to do the same thing as the standard HH - neck pickup, inner coils, both pickups, outer coils, bridge pickup - and it sounds great. 

BUT I’m surprised by the difference in volume between the 2 single coil settings and the other 3 settings. Since (for example) soloing the bridge pickup is essentially its 2 coils in parallel, I’m not sure why choosing a coil from EACH pickup should be quieter? Or am I misunderstanding something? I don’t think the stock HH was like this. It’s no biggie, just curious. 

Anyone any ideas? 

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Edited by dmckee
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Well, I had someone do it for me, so not sure. :-)  I can certainly suggest that. I guess my question is - is it reasonable to expect the volumes to be similar for all settings where there are 2 coils being used?  

 

Edited by dmckee
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16 minutes ago, dmckee said:

 I guess my question is - is it reasonable to expect the volumes to be similar for all settings where there are 2 coils being used?

 

Normally there would be a fairly hefty volume difference because generally the humbucker would be series and so you would be losing 50% of the signal when you split the coil).  However, the MM humbuckers are generally wired in parallel with the dual coils providing the classic MM tone and the pre-amp adding the volume.  And, as you say - assuming the Norstrands have been wired up like MM's in parallel (also worth double checking) then I'm guessing there normally would be a tonal difference but not a major volume drop if you dropped one of the coils out of the circuit.

I'm sure there will be much more knowledgable folks than me on hand soon, but if I was doing it myself (I added a P-pickup to @PaulS 's EB Stirling and converted it to passive a year or so back) I would be looking initially whether the humbuckers are wired in series (because some of the MM substitutes are) or if the singles switching has been wired out of phase (usually cured by swopping two wires around).  But as I say, there is bound to be someone here soon who can either confirm or refute that assumption :)

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